Academy Award nominee and three-time Emmy Award nominee James Cromwell ("Babe," "L.A. Confidential," "The Queen," "Six Feet Under") will play Pozzo in Mark Taper Forum's new production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot this spring.

James Cromwell
Photo by Joshua Pickering

The classic existential dark comedy set on a barren landscape will open at Center Theatre Group's Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles on March 21. Michael Arabian directs. Previews begin March 14. The run will continue to April 22.

The cast includes Hugo Armstrong as Lucky, LJ Benet as Boy, and the previously announced Beckett actors Alan Mandell as Estragon and Barry McGovern as Vladimir.

According to CTG, Waiting for Godot follows "two days in the lives of a pair of characters, Estragon (played by Mandell) and Vladimir (McGovern), whose apparent purpose in life is to wait by the side of the road for someone named Godot to arrive. This simple act, at once seemingly futile and hopeful, asks basic questions of human existence, why we are here and what is our ultimate destiny."

Waiting for Godot will feature set design by John Iacovelli, costume design by Christopher Acebo and lighting and projection design by Brian Gale. Casting is by Erika Sellin and the production stage manager is David S. Franklin.

Irish writer Beckett's Waiting for Godot premiered in 1953. His plays include Endgame, Krapp's Last Tape and Happy Days, among others. Beckett won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969 for his plays, books and other writings.

Tickets and information are available at CenterTheatreGroup.org or the Center Theatre Group box office located at the Ahmanson Theatre, or by calling (213) 628-2772.